The Mechanics of Poetry
Rhyme
Poetry appeals to the senses. Chief among them? Sound. Good poetry pleases the ear. Remember,
poetry was for many years an oral tradition. No -- not all poetry rhymes. Rhyming poetry did not even
appear regularly in the English language until sometime after the Norman conquest (1066). And, yes,
poetry is decorative. However, used skillfully, rhyme can contribute significantly to the following:
1. rhythm
2. mood
3. meaning
Definition: Rhyme usually means end rhyme -- that is, words at the end of one line having the same
vowel (or consonant) sound as words at the end of one or more other lines. However, other forms of
rhyme include internal rhyme, sight rhyme, and half rhymes.
“A Psalm of Life” by Longfellow illustrates end rhyme.
Life is real! Life is earnest!
And the grave is not its goal;
Dust thou art, to dust returnest,
Was not spoken of the soul.
Poe’s “The Raven” is an example of internal rhyme.
Once upon a midnight dreary, while I pondered, weak and weary,
Over many a quaint and curious volume of forgotten lore -While I nodded, nearly napping, suddenly there came a tapping,
As of someone gently rapping, rapping at my chamber door.
“Tis some visitor,” I muttered, “tapping at my chamber door -Only this and nothing more.”
This excerpt from a poem by John Milton shows sight rhyme.
Had not his weekly course of carriage failed.
But lately finding him so long at home,
And thinking how his journey’s end was come,
And that he had tane up his latest inn . . .
Half rhyme is used by George Herbert in “The Collar.”
While thou didst wink and wouldst not see.
Away! Take heed;
I will abroad.
Call in thy death’s head there; tie up thy fears.
He that forbears
Rhyme Scheme
Definition: The way in which a poet arranges rhymes throughout a poem is called a rhyme scheme. It is customary
to show the pattern of a rhyme scheme by using the letters of the alphabet, attaching the same letter to words that
rhyme together. The rhyme scheme for Tennyson’s “The Eagle” would be indicated this way: aaa / bbb.
He clasps the crag with crooked hands;
Close to the sun in lonely lands,
Ringed with the azure world, he stands.
The wrinkled sea beneath him crawls;
He watches from his mountain walls,
And like a thunderbolt he falls.
(a)
(a)
(a)
(b)
(b)
(b)
Complete the rhyme scheme for Robert Frost’s “Stopping By Woods on a Snowy Evening.”
Whose woods these are I think I know,
His house is in the village though
He will not see me stopping here
To watch his woods fill up with snow .
My little horse must think it queer
To stop without a farmhouse near
Between the woods and frozen lake
The darkest evening of the year.
He gives his harness bells a shake
To ask if there is some mistake.
The only other sound’s the sweep
Of easy wind and downy flake
The woods are lovely, dark and deep,
But I have promises to keep,
And miles to go before I sleep,
And miles to go before I sleep.
Scansion
Scansion is the process of analyzing poetry's rhythm by looking at meter and feet. A foot is a two- or three-syllable
division of stresses. Meter is the predominant rhythm of a poem based on the type and number of feet per line.
Syllables are marked either as stressed (/) or unstressed (-) depending upon the pronunciation of a given word
within the line. For instance, the word "example" would scan as: - / -ex am ple
Meter
Meter is defined by the predominant type of foot and the number of feet within the lines of a poem. For instance,
much of English dramatic verse was written in iambic pentameter, or lines of five iambs, because the rhythm most
closely approximated natural speech patterns. In fact, unrhymed iambic pentameter was so popular, it had a term of
its own: blank verse.
Common Metrical Feet in English
Foot
iamb
trochee
anapest
dactyl
spondee
pyrrhic
Syllables
2
2
3
3
2
2
Stress Pattern
-/
/--/
/-//
--
Example
pretend
season
unabridged
Prospero
well-loved
and the
Although most of Shakespeare’s verse is written in iambic pentameter, there are other meters as well:
• monometer
lines consisting of 1 foot
• dimeter
lines consisting of 2 feet
• trimester
lines consisting of 3 feet
• tetrameter
lines consisting of 4 feet
• pentameter
lines consisting of 5 feet (blank verse)
• hexameter
lines consisting of 6 feet (alexandrine)
*Lines of more than six feet are rare in English poetry.
Other Helpful Poetry Terms
• assonance:
• caesura:
• consonance:
• couplet:
• enjambment:
repetition or a pattern of similar sounds, especially vowel sounds
a natural pause or break in a line of poetry, in the middle of a line
repetition of consonant sounds, especially at the ends of words
a pair of lines of the same length that usually rhyme and form a complete thought
the running on of the thought from one line, couplet, or stanza to the next without a syntactical
break
• feminine ending: an extra unstressed syllable at the end of a line
• masculine ending: an extra stressed syllable at the end of a line
• versification: the system of rhyme and meter in a poem
Iambic Pentameter, Beloved of Will: Below are samples of iambic pentameter you might recognize. Like most of
his verse, they don’t scan with robotic regularity, but use feminine endings - look for the 11- syllable lines
(Romeo in Romeo and Juliet)
But, soft! what light through yonder window breaks?
It is the east, and Juliet is the sun.
Arise, fair sun, and kill the envious moon,
Who is already sick and pale with grief,
That thou her maid art far more fair than she ...
Scansion: Knowing an Iamb from a Trochee Skill-Fest 2008 3
If music be the food of love, play on;
Give me excess of it, that, surfeiting,
The appetite may sicken, and so die.
That strain again! It had a dying fall;
O, it came o'er my ear like the sweet sound,
That breathes upon a bank of violets,
Stealing and giving odour! Enough; no more:
'Tis not so sweet now as it was before.
(Hamlet in Hamlet)
To be, or not to be: that is the question:
Whether 'tis nobler in the mind to suffer
The slings and arrows of outrageous fortune,
Or to take arms against a sea of troubles,
And by opposing end them? To die: to sleep;
No more; and by a sleep to say we end
The heart-ache and the thousand natural shocks
That flesh is heir to, 'tis a consummation
Devoutly to be wish'd. To die, to sleep;
To sleep: perchance to dream: ay, there's the rub;
Sonnet #18
Shall I compare thee to a Summer's day?
Thou art more lovely and more temperate:
Rough winds do shake the darling buds of May,
And Summer's lease hath all too short a date:
Sometime too hot the eye of heaven shines,
And oft' is his gold complexion dimm'd;
And every fair from fair sometime declines,
By chance or nature's changing course untrimm'd:
But thy eternal Summer shall not fade
Nor lose possession of that fair thou owest;
Nor shall Death brag thou wanderest in his shade,
When in eternal lines to time thou growest:
So long as men can breathe, or eyes can see,
So long lives this, and this gives life to thee